


teenage dreams (so hard to beat)

by violentdarlings



Category: Me Before You (2016), Me Before You - Jojo Moyes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Cute, F/M, First Crush, Will Traynor is always secretly an emotional mess, egregious use of brackets, platonic, platonic OTP: Josie and Will
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-20 02:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7387159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Traynor is thirteen year old Louisa Clark's first crush. (Book canon but fits okay with movie-verse too.)</p><p>And: Will's relationship with Josie Clark, down the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> A little something to tide you lovely amazing people over while I bang out the next chapter of the long one. :)
> 
> Me Before You belongs to Jojo Moyes. Title from Teenage Kicks by Remi Nicole.

Louisa thinks that, if fate was kinder, they never should have met.

There are two sets of ‘they’, in this example. The first, of course, is her mum and Mrs Traynor. They come from completely different worlds, and at thirteen Lou is old enough to understand the differences in the way the Traynors live and the way her family does. And yet shortly after Louisa was born, and after Mrs Traynor had had Georgina, they’d managed to end up in the same mother’s group down at the village. And somehow they’d become best friends, despite the fact that they are nothing alike.

Louisa had never really liked Georgina, even from her earliest memories. At thirteen and fourteen respectively, they’re pushed together at gatherings like this, because grownups think that being a similar age is enough in common for kids to want to hang out together. But Louisa knows that’s crap, she’d much rather hang out with Treena, and that’s saying something. For a start, she and Georgina go to different schools, like different music, and Georgina’s always been really mean about Louisa’s taste in clothes, ever since the glittery wellies and bumblebee tights incident when they were little. Georgina’s probably forgotten about it, but Louisa hasn’t. She remembers.

The _garden party_ (as Mrs Traynor had called it, although it looks like any old party to Lou) is to celebrate Will’s finishing university. Will is Mrs Traynor’s son. He’s eight years older than Louisa, so she’s never had much to do with him. He was away at school from when she was little, and then at university in London, and he never seemed to be around much in the holidays. He’s different, from what Lou remembers. In her memory he’s tall and _there_ but sort of faceless, like she’d never bothered to focus enough on him before. It’s got to be at least five years since she’s seen him, after all.

But now? Now he’s tall and there and _beautiful_ , and it’s giving Louisa a weird feeling in her stomach. She’s been noticing boys lately (and that is bizarre in and of itself), but no one could mistake Will Traynor for a _boy_. He looks like one of those pin up guys all the girls at school have been swooning over, or like a singer or something. Except he’s real, and here, and Louisa needs some air.

She goes to the maze. She’s never really liked it in here (and one day she’ll have very good reasons to loathe it), but for now it’s not that bad. The hedges block out some of the sun, and she settles down on a bench, pulling out the book she stashed here earlier. It’s an excellent plan. She and Georgina have – by tacit, unspoken agreement – a pact to both stay out of the way at family affairs like this. It suits them both. Louisa can sneak off with a book somewhere, Georgina can go do whatever it is that she does, and both sets of parents with assume they’re with each other. It’s perfect.

Still, Louisa’s thinking longingly of lemonade and cake when she hears footsteps. There’s nowhere to hide. Will Traynor comes around the corner within seconds, looking just as tired and sick of company as Louisa feels.

Louisa blushes immediately, but if Will notices, he doesn’t say anything. “Mind if I hide here with you for a while?” he asks. “Mum keeps trying to show me off to her set and it’s driving me crazy.” Louisa nods, still looking down at her book, not trusting her voice to speak. They sit in silence for several minutes. It’s not as strange as Louisa might have previously thought; it’s downright companionable, Will’s soft breathing beside her. He’s not one of those people who feels the need to fill the silence. Louisa likes that.

Still, she’s curious. “You don’t like your mum’s friends?” she asks softly, and immediately regrets saying anything. Will shrugs. He doesn’t seem to have taken offense.

“I don’t dislike them,” he says. “I just don’t think I count as one of her ‘achievements’. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done myself. She has nothing to do with it.” Louisa privately disagrees. She’s listened to her parents worry about money often enough to know the advantages that come with growing up with the kind of money the Traynors have. Still, she’s polite enough to not say as much to Will’s face.

“You’re wrong, you know,” she says impulsively. Will turns to her with a look she can only describe as penetrating. Louisa nearly stumbles over the next sentence. “About your mum, I mean. She doesn’t want to show you off. She’s just really proud of you.” Something weird comes over Will’s face. It’s gone almost instantly, but it was definitely there, and it gives Louisa courage. “Seriously. She tells everyone about you. It drives Georgina mental.” Will smiles suddenly. It changes his whole face.

“Well, then,” he says conspiratorially, leaning down so she’s a bit closer, and the merriment in his eyes causes that weird feeling again somewhere around the vicinity of her bellybutton. “I’d best kept doing well, then. If only to annoy Georgina.” Louisa nods vigorously.

“Definitely,” she tells him. “Mum says you’ll be running that company in no time.” Will straightens up again, and Louisa misses the glow of having someone so beautiful that close.

“That’s the plan,” he says, but adds with sudden warmness, “You’re mum’s great. I’ve always liked her.” Louisa shrugs.

“She likes you too,” she says. “She says you’re like the son she never had.”

Will turns away suddenly. “That’s very kind,” he says, his voice gone strange. “I’d better get back. Mum’ll want to show me off to all her friends again.” But there is something about the way he says it that suggests his feelings on the matter may have eased a little. Louisa nods. Will looks down at her for a moment, and Louisa has the strange feeling he’s debating with himself. He seems to come to a quick conclusion, and abruptly bends down and kisses her on the cheek. “Keep sparkly, Louisa Clark,” he says, with a nod to her glittery ballet flats, and he’s gone, just like that.

Louisa’s left absolutely scarlet and with a crush roughly the size of France.

She’s not stupid. She knows Will only thinks of her as a girl his sister’s age. And the kiss had reflected that. It had been platonic, like he might give his little sister (if his sister would let him; Louisa rather doubts it).

She thinks about it anyway for _weeks_.

(The second set is Louisa and Will. And someday, this will be important.)


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's more than a little messed up.

Of all his mum’s friends, Will likes Mrs Clark the best.

There’s a reason behind this. Actually, there’s many reasons. Will isn’t actively aware of most of them, but they exist nonetheless.

Mrs Clark smells like flowers and baked goods and washing powder, and usually had baby Louisa hoisted on one hip – or later, Katrina. She never calls him William because she knows he doesn’t like it. She always has cake in the kitchen and when his mum’s not looking, gives him a slightly larger slice than everyone else. Her house is tiny and crammed full of mismatching furniture that sometimes makes his mum purse her lips, but Will thinks it’s great. She hugs with her whole body, the way she hugs her girls. Will’s mum doesn’t hug like that.

Later, when Will’s a teenager, there are other reasons. When he’s about twelve she insists he’s old enough now to call her Josie. She’s the only one of his mum’s friends he’s allowed to call by her first name. She never asks him what he wants to do after he finishes school (which is for the best, since he doesn’t have a clue). She doesn’t mind if he comes to visit without warning her first. In school holidays, he just drops in without warning sometimes, and she makes him a cup of tea and a slice of cake and lets him talk until all the poison in his chest is gone. Then little Louisa climbs up on his lap for a cuddle, and then of course Katrina wants a turn, and by the time he leaves he can’t remember what he was so fucking _mad_ about before.

But probably Will’s favourite reason, not that he’ll ever admit it to himself, is that when he’d come home for a visit after he’d graduated secondary school at the top of his year, she’d hugged him tight and called him ‘the son she’d never had’. She’d been crying, but that’s just what Josie does: cries when she’s happy and cries when she’s sad. He hadn’t known what to say back to her, but that had been all right.

He’s never seen his mum cry. Not when she’s happy, not when she’s sad. Not ever.

Will goes off to university and manages to forget, for the most part, about Stortfold. About his icy and sterile childhood and the sister who hates him though he can’t work out _why_ and that big house he’d grown up in where there was an awful lot of space although not so much love. At least, not love the way Will feels it. He feels it like a balloon in his chest, ever expanding or contracting, filled up with all the things he can’t do without. Not like his parents, who seem to tolerate one another at best, or Georgina, who grows up as the years go by and who Will sometimes can’t recognise his baby sister in. London is easier, and it’s easier not to come home.

But he has to come home when he finishes university. Not for long, just for a day or so, long enough to fulfil his familial duties and then get the hell out of town. The garden party is exactly the way he’d thought it would be; sunny and bright on the castle grounds, the little chairs, his parents’ friends who want to tell them all about their lives and aren’t in the slightest bit interested in his.

But then there’s Josie. Josie, in her best dress and her good heels, Bernard lurking uncomfortably at her elbow, Katrina on her other side. (He hasn’t the faintest idea where Louisa is.) She looks up at him, her eyes already watery, her arms reaching out to hold him. He’s twenty-one, for Christ’s sake, almost twenty-two. He’s a man. He shouldn’t feel so relieved at the thought of being held by her.

But Will lets her hug him anyway, lets her murmur words of praise into his shoulder, and pretends just for a moment that this is what it’s like to have a mum. That this is what life would be like, all of the time, if Josie was his.

(He goes back to London and tries to forget.)

(He doesn’t succeed.)


End file.
